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Purpose: dissemination of art, poetry, literature, for life, for healing, for a balanced wellness, an approaching of the truth or truths of existence.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Learning to write cursive, Russian and English

My daughter Annie Franck and I did a little cursive practice on sheets I copied from one of my Russian language workbooks. Together, we did A,B,C, D, E, the Russian letter Zh, and the Z. As we began, we were fortunate to hear Nora Jones perform a version of her song, I wonder why? to teach the letter "y."

Now where did that German workbook get to? Two days ago, Annie got to take three stickers out and place them on the table, the lamp, and another I forget to practice the words Tisch, Lampe, and ?... Her German is actually very good. I am making better efforts at developing mine. The day before yesterday, I met one of the German women in our town, who is waitressing at another restaurant than the one at which we first met her. She's got a son Altgeld's age. I suggested they get together with Wilma and our children, visit and speak in German together.

I realize it will take longer to learn more languages, and we do have our language priorities. First English, then German and Spanish, more or less as opportunity presents itself, then Russian or Irish or Arabic. We will be travelling some day, and I hope some of this will prepare us for the different encounters and experiences that develop.

You are the Gender Abolitionist type of feminist. This means that you
feel the best way to destroy patriarchal oppression is to rid ourselves
of misguided gender roles, and instead live in a society that does not
make such marked assumptions about gender differences. The Gender
Abolitionist is culturally radical, but rather conservative when it
comes to sexual liberation and politics. You have a strong sense of
human rights for all. In fact, you are actually a very moral person.
You don't see people in terms of gender and are thus very philosophical
in order to perceive the world in such a manner. You think people
shouldn't identify others in terms of gender. When most people see a
person, the first thing they think is "That person is a woman" or "That
person is a man", but they do NOT think "That person is a
short-fingernail". Most make someone's gender their IDENTITY, but
fingernail length would never be considered part of their identity. A
gender abolitionist would claim gender should be like fingernail
length--it shouldn't be part of someone's identity. By making gender a
part of identity, difference is emphasized and oppression is often
justified. Thus, gender shouldn't be regarded to such a large extent by
society. You are mostly concerned with seeing women become fully
equalized with men by eliminating gender roles, as these roles oppress
women.